VARGAS, Adrian Jeremiah C.

POSC 116 (9:00-10:30 TTH)

February 18, 2016

THBT: Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) Approach is enough to constitutionalize a

particular form of governance for developing countries

Speech: Rebuttalist (4th Speaker- Negative)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am the rebuttalist for the negative side. Allow me
to raise the affirmative side’s weak points and then the negative side’s strong points, ultimately
proving that the negative side has the stronger arguments. I will show how our side has
successfully extrapolated key arguments favoring the negative side while establishing the
affirmative side’s weaknesses.
First of all, the necessity speaker was unable to define all key terms. The only term given
a definition was “enough”. Aside from that, there was not a clear definition for all other key
terms, such as the word “constitutionalize” among others. This was noted in a question raised by
Mister Orland Luminarias during the ten-minute interpolation of the audience to the speakers.
The necessity speaker failed to justify how the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
Approach is enough to constitutionalize a particular form of governance. Instead, more of his
speech shows the history and basis of the PRSP, as well as how it functions.
Aside from this, he states that the PRSP is conducive, but it is unclear from his speech
what the PRSP is conducive, nor does the statement in itself contribute to how it is a necessity.
Rather, the thought of whether or not the PRSP is conducive should have been handled by the
beneficiality speaker.
All in all, the necessity speaker utilizes various criticisms about the PRSP, such as
reducing the autonomy of a state; however, he fails to disprove these criticisms. As a result, his
speech becomes more aligned to the negative side, rather than providing a stable foundation for
the rest of the affirmative side’s speakers.
Second, the beneficiality speaker makes mention of the various processes of the PRSP,
ranging from poverty-based analysis and showcasing national ownership, participation, and
accountability among others. While this is in fact true in the statements and goals of the PRSP, it
is clear when inquired that the beneficiality speaker was unable to provide concrete examples of
the success of the PRSP. In fact, the non-beneficiality speaker was able to give more examples
against the supposed “benefits” of the beneficiality speaker, losing once again the point to the
negative side.
 When the beneficiality speaker questioned the negative side about the supposed
importance of macrostability, she fails to understand the point the non-beneficiality speaker was
trying to make. It was never about macrostability being unimportant, but rather that the PRSP
focused too much on macrostability that what eventually occurred was the lack of focus on
microstability, an equally important aspect to poverty reduction.
Third, the practicability speaker simply reiterates previous points from the beneficiality
speaker and the necessity speaker. In fact, he mentions yet again the participatory and country-
driven process, yet he is unable to prove exactly how the PRSP is practicable.
In the negative side’s non-necessity speaker, she introduced how the PRSP was
supposedly results-oriented and enhanced democracy. It is clear in her points that the PRSP’s
mechanics and policies were too rigid in nature. In fact, when analyzing its terms and conditions,
the PRSP is contradictory. The government has little control since they are compelled to adopt
certain principles, making a mockery of all it promised to be. She states that the PRSP is only the
architecture of development; thus, it is not enough to constitutionalize a particular form of
governance.
For the non-beneficiality speaker, she proves both in her speech and during the
interpolation how the PRSP is not beneficial in constitutionalizing a particular form of
governance as it is too focused on macrostability, lending less to no attention towards
microstability.
She details how the PRSP is dominant in economic analysis but does not focus on
political analysis. This provides yet again how incomplete and incomprehensive the PRSP is. It
is not context-specific, contrary to its assumptions. This is proven by the numerous countries that
tried to adopt the PRSP.
In actual practice, the PRSP lacks broad-based participation from the poor. Our speaker
presents through these points how it is definitely not enough to constitutionalize a particular form
of governance.
Finally, our practicability speaker mentions notably how the PRSP contradicts itself when
it says that it gives control to the national government. With the overtones of non-practicability,
she showcases various countries that prove her point.
When you hear all of these arguments, you will see clearly that the negative side has the
stronger points and the affirmative side has the weaker points. Despite their attempts at
destroying our points, we have managed to remain valiant and undefeated in our position.
Instead, we have successfully defeated most of their points. Despite these facts, we would say
that our opponents were definitely worthy and were able to provide a good and healthy debate
for the class to understand. With all this being said, I would like to end my speech. Thank you
everybody, and have a good day.
 Reflection
The debate as a pre-final exam was quite an innovative way of digesting all the reading
materials, given the limited amount of time we all had in the second semester. I believe that the
debate was able to successfully pinpoint the necessary or essential features that the reading
material would have otherwise presented in a very complicated fashion. While I was reading the
material, it took me a longer time than expected to comprehend what the author, Heloise Weber,
was actually talking about in her article.
As our team carried on the negative side of the debate, we had the disadvantage of
seemingly not having the author by our side. Although Weber did not state that the PRSP was
necessary, she nevertheless did say it was instrumental. This would have been an argument our
side prepared for, as it would have given the affirmative side a somewhat misconstrued
perception of the author’s intentions.
During my time as the rebuttalist, it was difficult to take exactly the words of all the
speakers and summarize it well enough that the entire rebuttal was brief and comprehensive
enough for the audience to understand. I needed plenty of help from my teammates, and it paid
off. While I am sure that I missed various key points from the other side, I believe I did an
adequate job in showing how the negative side’s arguments were strong. I feel somewhat awful
about how I might have done anything to discredit the affirmative side, so it is my wish that
nobody felt offended by my tone, language, or message in general.
Finally, I would like to agree with our instructor’s choice in the winning team as we were
actually able to provide concrete evidence to buttress our claims, something that the affirmative
side was unable to achieve.

WORD COUNT: 300

References:
 Weber, H. (2004). Reconstituting the 'Third World'? Poverty Reduction and Territoriality
in the Global Politics of Development . Third World Quarterly, 187-206.
This journal article looks into the relationship between the politics of international
development and the reproduction of global inequality. Most importantly, Heloise Weber shows
how the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers [PRSP] is instrumental in constitutionalizing a
particular form of governance.

 Maluluan, J. C., & Guttal, S. (2003). Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: A Poor Package
for Poverty Reduction.

The article shows how the PRSP was actually ineffective at what it did. Some of the
points made by our side originated from this article, as it had some of the points we had
originally thought of, although the article was able to provide a multitude of examples
that we could not.